“I’m looking for a love potion.”
“Of course you are.” It was that time of year again, when teenagers came to the mall seeking far more potent things than they could handle. He had a variety of substitutes that he’d sell them, from concentrated moonlight to seahorse hormones, but he never gave them exactly what they asked for. “Prom’s coming up, yes? And there’s someone in particular that you want to go with you?”
“Have you ever experienced the Tetris effect?”
“I’ve heard it mentioned before. What exactly does it mean?”
“It’s what happens when you play Tetris for too long. The game continues in your head after you’ve quit. Blocks keep falling in your peripheral vision, and bursts of inner music prevent you from falling asleep.”
“Oh, I have! But that’s not even close to what I thought it meant.”
An ancient winter was buried in those caves, pressed between layers of geological strata. It was another kind of season from another kind of time, when the snow was luminous and refused to melt. After nine days spent lost in the dull, indigo glow of those tunnels, Thomas was no longer certain if the cold or hunger would kill him first. Almost all of his skin was numb, yet he could feel the outline of his stomach more clearly than ever before.
“Cherries aren’t technically berries, you know.”
“Wait, what?”
“Berries don’t have pits.”
“Well, what about cherries that contain themselves instead of pits?”
The bone trader opened his cloak, revealing to me that there was nothing but a skeleton beneath. Not everything inside was human in nature; his left ribs were parentheses of ivory, and those on the right had been replaced in their entirety by a caribou’s antler. There were copper bones in his legs that had once belonged to machine men, and rosewood vertebrae interspersed throughout his spine.
“Everything that you see here is open to trade, two or more of yours for one of mine.”
It is a difficult matter for ants to dream. The mental processing required takes up the majority of their small bodies, overflowing outward from tangled nerves into the strange oozes that fill their abdomens. Even these, the most social creatures on the planet, sometimes desire to be alone within their own minds.
“You know, like those little Russian dolls.”
“The kind where you break them open, and there’s a smaller one inside?”
“Yeah. One of these days I’m going to split in two, and a smaller, bloodier version of me is going to crawl out of my midsection. That’s what I have to look forward to in life.”
STARTERS
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$4.99 WEST TEXAS POPCORN - Cooked over an open flame the old-fashioned way, then tossed in thistle butter, dusted with rock salt, and finished with a drizzle of cactus blood.
$9.99 HUMMINGBIRD SKEWERS - Grilled whole on shish kebabs with peach slices, brussel sprouts, and artichoke hearts. Painted with a glaze of local petroleum, served burning.
